A Sydney man accused of beating a 17-year-old boy with a wrench, stabbing him and stomping on his head has been found guilty of murder.
A Supreme Court jury returned the guilty verdict against Yigit Can Erdogan on Wednesday following a five-week trial.
The Crown said the 22-year-old orchestrated the teen's torture and murder in 2019 over allegedly stolen property.
The body of the 17-year-old was found in a shallow grave in the Blue Mountains, wrapped in plastic and tape, eight days after he was last seen by his family.
He was found naked bar his underwear, with 25 stab wounds to his neck, a fractured skull and bleeding to the brain.
Prosecutor Ken McKay told the jury he had been detained, threatened and hit by Erdogan on March 12, 2019, before he was forced into a car with a group and driven around in an attempt to obtain money from people who knew him.
When that was unsuccessful, the group returned to a house where the teen was stripped down to his underwear.
He was then beaten with a wrench by Erdogan and hit repeatedly with a cricket bat on his instruction.
A knife was used by Erdogan and others, before Erdogan stomped on the victim's head.
The group then cleaned up the house, and obtained materials to dispose of the teen's body, the prosecutor said.
Defence barrister Angus Webb said while Erdogan admitted participating in some of the early parts of the saga, and the clean-up, he disputed "anything in the middle".
"He was not present when those things occurred and did not participate in them," Mr Webb said, referring in particular to assaults with the knife and cricket bat.
The jury was discharged without a verdict on a second charge of detaining a person in company to gain an advantage.
